Love, Healing, and the Power Within

Cady Kuhlman 0:05
All right. Welcome to nutrition worlds podcast. I am Katie Coleman, and I am one of the host of this podcast. And I am so honored today to be here with two of my really, really good friends and people that I look up to and inspire me and have really honestly changed my life. And so, so, so many ways. And this is Dr. Monica and Dr. Matt from rev Optimal Living. And they are somatic healers and chiropractors in our town that have a very, very specific type of body work that they do. And I’ve been fortunate enough to go to them now for seven years. And so it’s been seven years of really life changing work. And today on our podcast, you know, the theme is going to be talking about relationships and love. And since it is the month of February, the month of love, you know, we really want to give some tangible help to our listeners. And we want to talk about like, love but we want to get we want to break it down into something that they can either do at their home do on their daily life and bring this energy of love within their own personal life love within their own relationships or friendships up to a higher place. And so I think that’s why we’re here today is to just start speaking about love. So thank you guys for being here. And we’ll just let’s dive in. Yeah,

Dr. Monica Smith 1:19
I love that. Just thinking about love you went right to the nervous system, I think that is like so powerful and so different from what people usually think about this month. It’s like, okay, the candy the presents, like, what are we going to? How are we going to celebrate it when we actually don’t think about? How can I experience more love? How can I give more love? How can I like, enrich my life more that way? And so this conversation is going to be exactly, I think that

Cady Kuhlman 1:45
Exactly, exactly. You’re so right. Because if you think about it, it’s a very Hallmark holiday now. So it’s like people are gonna go and run to target and see what little crafts or candy or little things they can stuff into a bag for someone else. as well. It is nice, yeah, that’s some people’s love language, you know, gifts and things like that. So there’s nothing wrong with that. But for me like in for us, I think it’s it’s what’s really life changing. And what is really actually going to make a big difference on that person’s entire energy field on their heart, on their their minds. And so let’s just dive in, you guys are a married couple. And so you guys have, you know, your love, exactly love in the air. And so let’s talk about like, oh, let’s just dive into like one thing you guys do on a day to day basis, or a weekly basis or something that kind of helps the love within the household. I

Dr. Monica Smith 2:33
love I love this. And I always talk about like harmony within the house, like, we all need our own harmony, but we all need harmony together and in the whole unit for everyone to be really well. So this is like a perfect conversation. And it’s so like, multifaceted, because like, there’s so much that we do and like we’ve been married over 10 years. And like everyone knows who’s married or has like a longtime partner that like your partner is your mirror. So like, they are going to reflect to you the things that the wounds that you need to heal and unintegrated patterns that are ready to integrate into move forward. So like that is what we are for each other, but with the understanding that he’s not the reason why I’m feeling a certain way. And we’ve worked through things together and to be we talk about I mean, everything that’s like our I think our biggest thing is, is expressing ourselves and like working through and not blaming the other person necessarily. But let’s dive in, there’s so much.

Dr. Matt Smith 3:35
I think it’s naive to think that you’re just gonna have 100% love all the time. Because there’s challenges, there’s kids, there’s things that come up. But when I think about it, when I think about an aspect of health and healing and love, love is such a powerful frequency and vibration that when we feel it, like there’s a palpable shift in our entire physiology. So for me, and my mindset is that if we’re not in that place of love, if we’re not in that place of seeing our partner for who they are, we have two choices, we have one, we can continue how we’re moving along, and nothing’s going to shift or change. Or we can choose to say, hey, I don’t like the way that I’m feeling. And I want to look at things a little bit differently. And that’s something that me and Monica have done really well over the last decade of being married. It’s like, yeah, we have our tests, we have our things that come up, we are sometimes not fully present and not fully in our heart space. But as often as we can we try to return back to that. It’s because when we don’t return back to that, you hold grudges, you hold resentments, and that builds these neural pathways in our body that’s going to attach to the cortisol and the adrenaline, the stress and before we know it every day we started repeating that. So for us, it’s about how can we look at each other through the lens of love, appreciation, forgiveness, all those things that we know are good for a relationship and good for giving and receiving love.

Dr. Monica Smith 4:50
And I think the the biggest thing if I can just like really get to the bottom of all of what you’re saying is we we understand and we’ve known this for about 15 1015 years now that like, our level of self love is going to allow us to love another person that much more. So like being in a relationship and expecting that person to fulfill you, or if you’re, if you’re not happy for us, we always look inwards first of like, why? What am I feeling right now? Why am I not happy? Why am I angry? Or why am I not experiencing love, instead of like, putting it on the other person, we have to really go within. And that’s the deeper work. And that’s like, the brave work, I would say of like, what what do I need to heal within myself so that I can be whole, so that I can experience more love and give more love to not only Matt, but like my two kids and, and the world, really. So whether

Dr. Matt Smith 5:45
it’s your partner, your child, your mother, your father, your son, your daughter, whatever it may be, it is not their responsibility to make you feel a certain way. And that’s what she says like, that’s something that we a long time ago, I personally was looking for love outside of myself. And it wasn’t till we heard that saying, whatever’s going on the inside is going to reflect outwards as well and taking that ownership for your own self love. And when you love yourself deeper, and you have a practice of, you know, we were talking about meditation integration process, and we like to say looking at your stuff, essentially, things just start to open up and beautiful ways and your heart can fully explode. And you can be fully present for not only yourself, but for your friend, partner and all that other

Cady Kuhlman 6:29
stuff. Absolutely. That’s some beautiful stuff. Thank you guys. So I think when like when you were speaking, something that was coming up for me was, you know, in previous relationships before my hubby, I had some patterns that would kind of come up where instead of if there was conflict, or there was something need to be talked about, maybe from my own childhood, maybe from what I had witnessed within my own parents, maybe from what I just witnessed in society, instead of addressing the issues, I would just become cold and shut down. And it would be this almost automatic response that would happen. And it happened a lot in my teens in my early 20s. And so I was awake to that. But I wanted to change it and no amount of like self talking could kind of stop that automatic response for me. Do you have tips for that exact process, or someone’s listening to this? And they’re like, Oh, I always react with the same yell at my husband or I always react with the same anger. And I wish I could slow down. And for me, it was the shutdown. But do you have anything like to kind of help with that? Yes,

Dr. Monica Smith 7:26
so many. And I love that question that’s going to be of the most service. But I think going back to like, why does that even happen in the first place is really important to share. And so we all have patterns that we’re running in our nervous system every second of every day. And so if we’ve had experiences, you know, like you brought up childhood, like, maybe we even, maybe we had like this crush on someone at school, and they like made fun of us or shut us down, we and we can’t process it, because it’s a big moment. And it’s embarrassing. And we’re these little children, and we don’t have the tools to like, express ourselves or work through it, it stores within our biology and our nervous system, and then that pattern will continue to run until it’s integrated. So a lot of times, that’s in adulthood. And that’s why like, if you’re in a really safe relationship, your patterns will come up because it’s actually time to heal them. So it’s not about also judging them of like, why am I reacting or why am I like closing myself off when they’re expressing something, I think for everyone to just become aware of it and just start to notice, in every moment, maybe in like a little tiff that you guys are having we say TIFF, it’s like, whatever you want to call it, an argument, or just a stressful moment, observing how you’re feeling is going to be the most powerful, I would say because you can’t work through something unless you’re aware that it’s actually running subconsciously, because 95% of us is subconscious. So we need to bring the subconscious to the conscious.

Dr. Matt Smith 8:55
I mean, it’s just piggyback off that it’s a neuro biochemical neural hormonal experience that you’re having that you had when you were 15 years old, 20 years old, 25 years old, with past relationships. So it’s the experience that comes in and it releases all of these emotions, these hormones is biochemistry in your body. And this is why we feel it so deeply. And to piggyback off of her 95% of who you are is the subconscious programs and patterns. So new relationship happens, it triggers this old response. And so it’s understanding that and so to piggyback again off her not beating yourself up that it’s happening and awareness is the first step. If you’re not aware, you’re yelling, if you’re not aware, you’re being a jerk, if you’re not aware of that, you’re gonna keep doing it the rest of your life until life smacks you in the face, right? You can get the little taps on the shoulders like oh, I don’t feel good and how I spoke to her spoke to him. So those are the cues and the messages. So it’s really just one opening up your awareness. So how do we open up our awareness? closing our eyes, thoughtfulness, reflecting inward reflecting on our past thinking about envisioning our future and what we want to show up as, as a husband, you know, a trait that that I think that are actually not trait, a tool that I think people can use that is talked about all the time is visualization and meditation, a lot of people have hesitancy towards meditating just because like, I can’t close my eyes and not think for five minutes, right? That’s not meditation, it doesn’t have to be that it’s impossible not to have a thought come up, right. So for me, it was something that I’ve been doing more recently, and it’s something I’ve done for a decade, and we both have, but I’m getting more back into it is just sitting down in the morning, and feeling into gratitude. Like, it’s so simple, it’s so simple. It’s not simple. It’s an easy process to do, but it’s something that we don’t typically want to do. So I close my eyes. And I just think about how grateful I am to have a wonderful wife how grateful I am to have two children at home, and a roof over my head that I get to eat every single day that I get to work and you know, communicate with people. And you just start reframing and changing some of these patterns. And these, the serotonin and the dopamine, that thing kind of flood your system. And it’s easier to feel more happy. Actually, Monica just recently, she’s like, you’ve been really giddy over the last week or two. She’s like, what’s been going on, it’s like, I’ve just been doubling down on my gratitude and feeling into that. So that’s just one simple thing that they can do, people can do to start really feeling into more love. And just like anything, it’s going to be challenging and hard at first, and you still may react the same way. But you can get better than next time and just working on improvement.

Dr. Monica Smith 11:36
And these patterns that are running within our body like they want to shift like they want to heal like we’re meant to grow are meant to evolve. So they’re coming up for reason. So there’s other things outside of that, that people can begin doing to interrupt the patterns and rewire them. And so there’s so many different things you can do. But at the base of this is what you guys do is just helping people to take care of their bodies, like we need to attend to our body so that our body can free up that stored energy. Because when we have a pattern locked in our body, let’s say that you say something, it triggers me, I’m instantly really mad. It’s literally running within my body. And it causes a lot of energy to hold it in place, which is why fatigue is the first sign of disease in the body. So from there, you can do anything like movement, like even just like working out, or stretching little little things like that. Breathing better. Most people are only breathing, like, right here, like in our upper chest. But if we can, like breathe like front to back side to side into our pelvic basin, and just be more mindful of it, it’s going to help to move those patterns in our body more. And then I mean, like what you said, just being aware of it and seeking a different way as well. Like when a pattern does come up, thinking, Okay, I saw how I reacted. How do I want to react next time like what is ideal to me? How do I want my relationship to be? Do I want it to feel like this? Or do I want it to feel like deeper connection? Like we’re we’re just doing things differently than then what we do. And like for us, there’s still patterns that we’re in. And even like, I mean, often we’re growing and rapidly, we’re growing. And I feel like often I’m like, I don’t want to do this anymore. We get stuck as couples, we get stuck in a pattern, not only my own patterns, but he reacts, then I react and then it becomes this pattern together. Yeah. And so I’m just like, I want to do things differently. So even if in that moment, I usually would react like this. And I take a breath and I’m like, Okay, there’s more space between that now, which means the patterns rising? How do I want to how do I want to react? How can I do things differently? Maybe I can like grab his hand and like connect with him and look him in the eyes and let’s breathe together. Let’s be in our heart because I think we all know what it feels like to be in an argument with someone and they’re in their head and not their heart, the energy is completely different. So to bring that energy down and feel into your heart space, this is our power like this is our most powerful thing that’s emitted from our body and it’s felt it’s palpable. So for us that’s kind of how we are beginning to work through things and it’s evolving and changing

Dr. Matt Smith 14:12
daily and you got it yeah, I mean I’m thinking about it now you have to actively choose to

Dr. Monica Smith 14:18
feel love you have to want and want if people out

Dr. Matt Smith 14:21
there maybe watching this video this this you know whole thing with us and be like, Well, you haven’t had my life and you’ve haven’t been broken up with 50 times and this happened this happened this happened. Yeah, we haven’t we haven’t had your same experiences. We’ve had our experiences and we’re not perfect by any means. We’ve all had challenges that come up but at the end of the day, feeling the anger feeling the resentment feeling the hate, whoever did that to you, you’re holding on to it. They’re not holding on to any more or maybe they are but that’s not your issue or problem. It’s our own so we have to choose. I don’t want to feel this resentment or this dissonance this anger this hate because it is not helping me to take my life. to the next level, so it’s this conscious choice of like, Alright, I want to live my life differently. And I think that’s a beautiful place for 99.9% of the world to

Cady Kuhlman 15:07
start lately. And something that resonated so strongly with me when Monica was speaking was the fact of fatigue as being a sign of like used of energy, and I spent a lot of my 20s very fatigued. And I think you might have shared that as well. And I had a lot of stored patterns, a lot of stuff I was holding on to, and I consciously really didn’t want to, but my body was just continuing to kind of hold that pattern. And I could sleep all the time, it didn’t matter, I wouldn’t wake up rested, I would still feel fatigued, I always ate well, I always took my supplements, you know, I’ve always done my things. But once I started freeing up a lot of those stored emotions, or stored energies, my energy level increases and increases to the point that can’t even be explained. Now, as you all know, the level of running a business and kids, it’s like this is even greater than what maybe science could explain the level of energy that we can have to show up for all those avenues and all those areas. And to me, it’s because it’s the freed up emotions that literally aren’t bogging myself down. Yes. You know, like people

Dr. Monica Smith 16:07
in our practice, like often, we have like a 30 day check in after like the reset and, and the month mark, and then the three month mark, a lot of times people are saying I just feel lighter. I literally felt like I was heavy, not like weight wise, but like, I just felt like sluggish inside to where I couldn’t like, move freely. And I just didn’t feel good. Like I felt stuck, frozen, basically in a sympathetic overdrive state. But yeah, that’s, that’s what it is. And then when you begin integrating and healing in really big ways, especially through the body, because talk therapy is amazing. So I always say, to get clear on what exactly you’re working through, and really, it opened up this energy center here, but it’s still stored within the body, we have to address the body if you’re really going to heal. And especially if you want greater levels of energy, we need to free it up in the body, like it’s transformational. And that’s what it was, for me, like, my energy was zapped at 17. That’s when I got really sick with an autoimmune disease. I’m 36. Now no sign of that disease in my body. But fatigue was the first sign for me, it was like ripped from my body. And I, it was so hard to function that state from having high levels of energy and also not, it completely changes your life. And now to have it again, like you’re saying, it’s like my everything, and I want to cherish it and cultivate it. And absolutely, we can get more of it and more of it, and then also help other people to get it too. Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Matt Smith 17:31
I’m thinking about you and your story. It’s so similar to so many people that have come through our doors working with people for nearly eight years now. I think of things from the energy expenditure that has to go through when you have this toxicity and you like we’ve talked about, but emotions, man, they’re heavy, they’re heavy, there’s a weight and we think how can they be heavy, it’s not a it’s not a real physical thing I’m eating or taking in or toxin like that. But I think of everything and sense of vibration, tone and frequency, the frequency and vibration of hate and anger and these negative emotions, there’s a density to them, the actual atoms that make us up, they contract because there’s less light or at a lower frequency. But when we can release those things integrate process, more space is actually created within ourselves and our animals more biophotonic light gets animated and animated from us. So you can see that and people palpably when someone is in love, they look different, there’s a light glowing from them, when they’re not in love, you can see that as well. And there’s a weight and density to that which most people wouldn’t think. But that’s why so many people once they start feeling better and start offering those things I can breathe again. Because this density is no longer contracting within their system. Totally.

Cady Kuhlman 18:48
And something that just came up for me when you were saying that if you’re listening and you don’t even have say a partner right now or a marriage or you’re not in a relationship like that you still can fall in love with your own life. Yeah, that’s what I was just hearing you say is like, you know, we’re talking about relationships and love but the relationship with yourself the relationship with your own life and your own, you know, waking up and feeling the gratitude that’s a relationship and a love that can go on that I think we don’t oftentimes speak about in our society or really know how to address and so that was something I kind of just felt and

Dr. Matt Smith 19:19
if you if you don’t have are in a relationship and you don’t have that relationship, love and your life and you are looking for that what you think most people would be in that situation, you have to go inward first and when you do that and you change that vibrational frequency I’ve seen it so many times in our office, people go through this healing journey. They start loving themselves more and like on it like something they meet someone the next week, right or the next month and they meet the love of their life because they finally shifted that frequency. Yeah,

Cady Kuhlman 19:49
I believe that. And so you know, to kind of finish up here I have to comment and I know that everyone may not be local to Chattanooga, but if you are or if you’re able to ever swing through these guys have absolutely changed my life through their practice. And so, you know we spoke about breathwork and meditation and the gratitude and the things we can tangibly do from our own home. But going in and getting the neural integration and getting the body work has literally shifted